City settles suit with man beaten by police

2005 case helped spark inquiry into officer acocuntability

By SCOTT GUTIERREZ, P-I REPORTER

Published
10:00 pm PST, Thursday, November 22, 2007

An artist who accused Seattle police of violating his civil rights and assaulting him during an arrest outside a Capitol Hill nightclub has settled his lawsuit against the city, according to documents obtained Thursday.

A record of the settlement between Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes and the Seattle Police Department was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court, a week before the case was scheduled for trial. Financial terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but it does not concede wrongdoing on the part of the city.

Alley-Barnes, 29, was wrestled to the ground, punched and kicked in a struggle that started April 13, 2005, over his questioning of an officer's decision to cite a friend for littering. Photos taken afterward showed his face swollen and bruised.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other community activists seized on his case last summer as evidence that the Police Department's internal disciplinary system was ineffective. After intense publicity surrounding the case, and a citizen oversight panel's criticism of another controversial arrest downtown, Mayor Greg Nickels appointed a panel to examine the accountability system and recommend improvements by the end of 2007.

An internal investigation determined that the sergeant who ordered Alley-Barnes' arrest overreacted and violated policy. But the sergeant, Greg Sackman, avoided serious disciplinary action because the investigation surpassed a 180-day time limit guaranteed by the officer's union contract.

The lawsuit named Sackman and police Officers Brian Hunt, Kevin Jones and Courtney Harris as defendants. It also named Chief Gil Kerlikowske, alleging that he neglected recommendations that officers undergo better training on how to prevent minor incidents from escalating.

"I hope that the city has learned from this whole course of events -- the event that night, the prosecution and the civil suit -- that a minor incident like this should never have escalated in the way it escalated," Fred Diamondstone, the plaintiff's attorney, said Thursday.

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City Attorney Tom Carr declined to comment Thursday. Kerlikowske, who was serving dinner at the Salvation Army kitchen on Thanksgiving, also declined to comment.

The Seattle P-I plans to seek the settlement amount through the state's open records law.

The arrest took place after Sackman stopped Alley-Barnes' friend, Thomas Gray, for tossing a wad of paper on the ground. Sackman ordered the friend to pick it up, which he did with an apology. Sackman then issued a citation, prompting Alley-Barnes to question the officer.

Sackman and another officer detained the two friends, who are African-American. Alley-Barnes accused the officers of racial profiling.Sackman called for backup, noting in his report that Alley-Barnes seemed hostile and had ignored commands to walk away. More officers arrived, saw Alley-Barnes struggling and put him to the ground.

Alley-Barnes, who had no criminal history, was charged with obstructing and resisting arrest.

But when a video of the confrontation from a patrol car camera surfaced, a Municipal Court judge dismissed the case. The Police Department didn't produce the video, which depicted Alley-Barnes pleading with officers to stop kicking him, until five days into his trial in 2005, prompting a rebuke from the judge.

Sackman initially faced a five-day suspension, but Kerlikowske relented after discovering the time-limit error. Instead, Sackman was ordered to undergo supervisory counseling, according to department records. Sackman since has been promoted to lieutenant.

Lawyers first reached a settlement Nov. 15, but a mishap by city attorneys nearly derailed it. According to court documents, Alley-Barnes' mother, Royal, who works in the Seattle Parks Department, mistakenly received an e-mail that contained an exchange between two city attorneys speculating about her son's court costs and how much he would actually recover in the settlement.

An assistant city attorney mistakenly addressed the e-mail to "Alley-Barnes" instead of typing his name in the subject line. Royal Alley-Barnes' name registered in the e-mail system's directory, which sent the message to her, according to court documents.

The matter is under investigation by the City Attorney's Office, court documents say. Neither attorney would comment on the e-mail.

"I do not think the city of Seattle and the decision-makers for the law department are at all happy with what they ended up paying," Diamondstone, Alley-Barnes' lawyer, said.